


Boy, You're Gonna Carry That Weight

by bigbidumbass



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Angst, M/M, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:00:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23935735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigbidumbass/pseuds/bigbidumbass
Summary: A collection of angst one-shots for 1917, including prompts like:-What if Will had died instead of Tom?-Silence was the sound of death-Unrequited loveEach chapter is a different prompt!
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	1. Let It Be.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Pain.

Pain. It was something Scho wasn’t a stranger to. So much pain, all the time. In the loneliness, in the churning pangs of his empty stomach, in the deep aches of his joints. It was a constant, a graceless familiarity. Pain that buried itself in his chest when he’d gone home. Pain every time he thought about that  _ fucking  _ medal.

He supposed fear was a type of pain; a deep nauseating form that seemed to wrap its hands around your throat, its dark hands tickling your breath, always, always threatening to suffocate you.

Fear was a part of him, grown into him like weeds buried themselves into the grass. No matter how much he entombed it into him, it would not hide. Not fully, at least. It hitched itself in his breath, tangled within his thoughts.

Pain was fear. Pain was dust in his lungs as he lay trapped and alone, pain was the soft cherry blossoms around him.

Pain was Tom’s blood on his hands, warm and crimson, sickeningly metallic. Pain was the hush of Tom’s breath, the stillness of his body. 

Fear was the awful realization that he was alone. Alone, no matter how many people were around him, forever doomed to be isolated.

Pain was the burning town of Ecoust, the ash in his breath, the searing lack of air in his lungs as he ran. 

Fear was his body slowly melting into lethargy, his face sinking underwater, the panic of exhaustion.

Pain was the song, the soldiers around him, the deaths that could have been prevented.

Pain was Joe, shaking his hand, the delivery of soul-crushing news.

Relief? It was sweet, and it mixed itself with the pain and the fear as he finally sat to rest.

And then he felt nothing, simply nothing at all, and he closed his eyes to numbness.


	2. Love is Not A Victory March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom loves Will. Will doesn't love him back.

Tom was in love, but it wasn’t how he had expected. It was nothing like anyone had said- it _hurt._ He lay alone at night, wishing that he could somehow choke out his feelings, stomp them out like the embers of a fading flame. But they clung to him, as water clung to a cloth sleeve.

The truth was, he was in love with Scho, and Scho was not in love with him. There wasn’t even a chance, a small spark of possibility- Scho simply did not feel the same. Tom could see it, the softness in Will’s eyes as he looked through his photographs. Tom knew Will had a wife. Tom knew Will loved her.

He tried to hide it, the best he could. He masked the pain that stabbed through his heart every time Will smiled. He turned himself away when the yearning flowed through him so much that he thought he might burst. He quieted his tears in the dark, letting them flow silently as he dreamed about being at home. At home none of this would be important- it would be him and Mum and Joe and the cherry blossoms, and the pain wouldn’t matter. That wasn’t how it turned out, of course. 

How it turned out was him physically aching for Will, always, the fear of being discovered. Every small moment of touch might as well have been shrapnel, the way they seemed to rip his chest open. How it turned out was his own blood on his hands, the betrayal of the pilot. How it turned out was lying in Will’s arms, dying.

He was scared, so scared, so helpless to have never been loved in return. He begged the heavens above for another chance, but the silence was deafening, and he was still on the ground, bleeding out. It hurt- the wound in his stomach, but also the ever aching loneliness, the knowledge that he’d never be fully known, fully loved. It was hard to breathe now. He begged Will to do what he could not- to go on.

And in his last moment, Will held his hand, and Tom felt some sort of peace.


	3. I've Looked At Clouds From Both Sides Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Will had been the one to fall, instead of Tom?

Scho hadn’t processed that the blade had punctured his abdomen until Tom had shot the pilot.

“No, no! Scho!” Tom yelled, but Will had barely registered his words. The image of the bloody knife leaving his stomach was playing over and over in his mind, distracting him from everything else.

_ I need to look at the wound,  _ he faintly realized.  Shaking, Scho removed his outer layer. The knife had made it through, alright. He was bleeding.

He numbly touched his hand to the wound.  Tom was suddenly beside him, grabbing his arm, gently sinking him to the ground.

“Here,” Tom said, pressing dressings onto the wound. “It’s alright. You’re going to be alright.”

Pain shocked through Will’s body at the pressure of Tom’s hand, and he made a guttural, pained noise as he processed it.  Now panic was setting in- he tried to breathe, tried to calm down, but it barely mattered.  Tom was talking to him, fast words that he didn’t understand, until he had gripped Will’s face and forced him to listen.

“Scho. Scho, listen to me,” he said. “We need to get to a doctor.”

Scho vaguely gathered thought of agreement, and he managed a small, “Yes.”

“Alright, we’re going to move,” Tom said.

Will nodded, and Tom grabbed his jacket and hoisted him up.  But the pain was crippling, and Will was sinking back down. Tom did his best to hold him up, but he was essentially dragging a bleeding dead weight with him, one in excruciating agony.

“I can’t, Tom, stop,” Will pleaded, crying out in pain.

But Tom was stubborn, still trying to get the both of them to move. They made it maybe one meter before the two of them came tumbling back to the ground.  Will was on his back, desperately trying to breathe. Tom pressed on his wound again, and Will cried out again.

“Tom-,” he started, but Tom shushed him. 

“We’ve got to get to an aid post,” Tom instructed, obviously frightened. “Come on, Scho, get up! Get up!”

Will tried again, for Tom’s sake, but the moment he put any weight on his legs, his knees buckled and he was falling right back to where they’d started.  Tom tried dragging Scho, but when Will started screaming in pain, he immediately stopped, half-sobbing.

“We can’t stop,” he said through his tears. “We can’t- I can’t do it alone.”

He took the blood-soaked dressing off the wound and applied a new one, tears streaming down his face as he put more pressure on it.

“We- we have to get you to a doctor,” Tom said, his voice thick with tears.

Will gently took his hand, squeezing it.  He felt quite faint now. He was tired, so tired.

Then, he suddenly was confused. Where was he? What had happened? Why was Tom holding him?  He looked down, surprised to see blood. 

“Oh,” he said softly. “Have I been hit?” 

Tom took in a sharp breath. “You were stabbed,” he answered.

Will took a moment to process that, feeling his breaths slowly scrape in his chest. Tears came, stinging and warm, slipping down his cheeks.

He was dying.

“You’ll have to go alone,” he told Tom. “I’m sorry.”

“Scho, I can’t. I can’t do this without you,” Tom insisted.

Scho was strangely calm, a wave of peace in the eye of the storm.

“Yes, you can,” he told Tom. “You’ll find your brother, and deliver the message to Mackenzie. I know you can. Through Écoust to Croisilles Wood.”

Tom was shaking his head, but he couldn’t stop the fact that Will was slipping away.

“I know... you know the way,” Will said. 

Tom nodded, gripping Will’s hand. “I’ll make it,” he vowed. “I’ll get there and stop the attack. I promise.”

“Yes,” Will said, squeezing Tom’s hand, slick with blood.

He reached into his pocket, and Tom helped him pull out his photographs.  Looking at the one of Eleanor, he felt an extreme sense of grief. 

_ Come back to us _ .

He could not, now, and would never be able to, and that couldn’t be changed.  He came to a strange sense of acceptance, a warmth washing over him.  Taking a moment to reflect on how he loved them, he placed the photograph down on his chest and looked up at the sky, his last breath shuddering through his chest. 

He quite liked the sky.


	4. Take My Arms That I Might Reach You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Silence.

Silence. Will longed for silence.

That was the worst thing about being here, in this place; you could never get any quiet, any peace. Between the shellings- so deep you could feel them in your bones- the haunting cries of the wounded, the slips of conversation, shouted arguments, soft laughter- peace and silence were two luxuries that the war could not afford. 

Even in his dreams, Will was tense and restless- he had not gotten a single night of decent rest since the war had started. It was the thing he missed most, the soft feeling of calmness, of being safe. Silence had been a comfort, a salvation from the neverending woes of the world.

He’d heard people talk sometimes, about how the silence scared them, about how they couldn’t bear it after the war. Will could not share their feelings- he missed it dearly.

It evaded him, even in the deserted wastelands of no man’s land- the revolting squelch of mud beneath his boots, the sound of his heavy breath. He didn’t mind the sound of Tom though, beside him. Tom was his own comfort, the only amount of noise that Will didn’t despise.

Tom was the sound that consoled him when he was beneath the rubble, gasping for air that wasn’t there. The sound of Tom’s footsteps in front of him, which guided Will even as he groped through the dark, blinded by the dust in his eyes. The sound of Tom’s voice, jokes that made him smile.

He’d thought the sound of Tom’s voice could never make him feel afraid. He’d thought it until he’d heard Tom scream from behind him and had looked over, seen the blade, seen the blood.

That was a sound that had made Will’s stomach turn to lead, the blood in his veins to ice.

It was the worst sound Will could have possibly heard. And then his heart was in his ears, deafening out everything else- the sound of the gunshots, the burning of the plane in the background. 

The sound of Tom’s screams were somehow worse, worse than the shellings, worse than the wounded, worse than anything he’d ever experienced. 

Will hated the fact that Tom was in pain, the fact that Tom was dying- and he hated even more that he could do nothing to stop it, nothing to salve the agony. 

He tried to provide comfort, with the sound of his voice, the words he spoke to Tom so gently.

He knew they barely scratched the surface.

It was when Tom went still that Will understood. As he watched Tom’s breath, his eyes glazed over, his body lay unmoving.

It was then when Will finally understood why people feared silence.


	5. Yesterday Came Suddenly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A direct parallel to chapter 4.   
> Prompt: Silence was the sound of death.

Silence said so much more than words could. Joe found that out very quickly. It wasn’t the words that were the worst part- it was the stillness of it all. The terrible, aching stillness that said everything and nothing all at once. 

It was silence that surrounded him after the battles, when he sat alone. He’d learned to live with it, but he found that it was much more bearable when he was humming to himself, hearing the music instead of the noiselessness around him. 

Even the screams were better- the screams at least meant that they were alive. The screams at least meant that Joe wasn’t alone. Silence was the sound of death. 

It was silence that delivered the news, not words. The news that Tom was dead. The soldier in front of him didn’t need to say it- the lack of words was plenty clear.

“It was very quick,” the man said, and the full weight of it hit Joseph, dropped onto his shoulders so heavy that it threatened to overturn him.

The soldier was watching him. “I’m sorry,” he told Joe.

Joe nodded, trying to compose himself, trying to ignore the fact that he did not know what life was without Tom. 

The man reached into his pocket, pulling out Tom’s rings, his identity disc. He gently placed them onto Joe’s hand, his eyes sharing the same grief that Joe felt now. 

Joe stared down at them, the possessions that now were all he had left of Tom. They still had remnants of blood on them, and Joe tried not to imagine- imagine the life fading out of his baby brother, not to imagine the pain he endured.  _ Very quick,  _ the man had said. Thank God.

“What’s your name?” he asked the soldier, but didn’t hear the answer. He was looking down at the rings, mourning- why hadn’t it been him? Why had Tom been the one to go? Why Tom, with his ever contagious smile, and his unending supply of stories, his ability to read the room and make everyone laugh? Why?

Joe realized where he was, realized he’d missed the reply.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked.

“It’s Schofield, Sir,” the soldier replied. “William Schofield. Will.”

Joe looked at him, really looked at him. He could have been a ghost, for the way he looked- half-dead, nearly. He was soaked to the bone, white as a sheet, probably starving. Joe felt a great deal of pity for him, for this boy who’d clearly been through hell, who’d watched Tom die.

“Well,” Joe said, collecting himself, “You need some food. Get yourself to the mess tent.”

Schofield nodded, and the pain overwhelmed Joe, surrounding him. Pain for Tom, for the soldiers who had hurt and died on this field, for the boy in front of him. He felt his jaw tighten as he bit back the tears, bit back the loss. Schofield turned to leave, then froze. Joe could tell he wanted to say more, could tell that he felt his words hadn’t been enough.

“If I may, I’d like to write to your mother,” Will said. “Tell her that Tom wasn’t alone.”

Oh, Christ- Joe had nearly forgotten, the pain had been so much. He couldn’t imagine the agony that she’d go through, finding out her youngest son had fallen.

“Of course,” Joe said. 

“He was… he was a good man,” Will told him. “Always telling funny stories. He saved my life.”

Joe understood- understood how Will felt indebted to Tom, perhaps even felt partly to blame for his death. But Joe knew Tom, knew the goodness in him. He took some comfort in that, to know that Tom had been Tom until the very end.

“I am glad you were with him,” he said, and meant it dearly. He held out his hand to shake, and Schofield took it. There was a moment of understanding, of solidarity- they had both loved and lost. 

“Thank you, Will,” he said. He let the silence say the rest.


	6. And Like a Boat Out on The Ocean, I'm Rocking You to Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: cherry blossoms

Cherry blossoms follow Schofield until the day he dies. 

They always come in the least expected moments, always with the same pain. They manifest themselves as a sharp stabbing in his chest, in his left hand, the back of his head, in his abdomen. An icy reminder of the boy with the blue eyes. 

And a permanent lump in his throat.

Even when it’s been years, the pain is still just as raw. The memory never fades.

No, he lives through it night after night—it’s impossible to forget. Every night he inhales burning embers, every night he is not strong enough to lift Tom, every night the convoy is too late. Every night he wakes alone, shaking. The dreams do not die, but Tom always does.

The blood stains Will’s hands. It won’t wash off, no matter how hard he tries. He spends hours scrubbing his hands, until they bleed, until his own blood mingles in with the crimson of Tom’s.

Will once takes the hand of a girl named Emily and looks down to see red.

He doesn’t hold anyone’s hand after that.

At the market, he sees the cherries, but beyond that, he sees the river. He sees Tom in his arms. He sees the blossoms around him.

Those blossoms haunt him until his last breath.

When Will passes, he is buried in a field of them—a tree planted over his grave.

Even in death, Tom Blake still lingers near William Schofield.


	7. I Could Offer You A Warm Embrace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off lines in the script:  
> Schofield raises an arm from the water and sees the petals clinging to him.  
> Blake.

The river felt like a bed, and sleep was calling out to Schofield. It clung to his drooping eyelids, it planted itself in the aching of his legs, his hand, his head. He could hardly remember a reason to stay awake anymore—only primal instinct had him clinging to the branch that kept him afloat.

The sound of the water was a lullaby, bubbling gently into his ears, calling him lower and lower until Schofield felt his face sink beneath it. He had nearly given in to its call, nearly let himself drift off when there was suddenly a paralyzing, electric, instinctual fear that ran its way through him, into every inch of him and he shot up on impulse. He flailed about, spitting up water and staring up at the sky, breath scraping its way through his lungs with burning effort.

_ Stay awake,  _ a stubborn command to himself, but the sleep was so tempting, so welcoming. It might have been a warm hug, pulling him into its arms, breathing soft sighs of comfort.

It might have been the call of the sirens, persuasion bleeding into him, his protestations slowly melting more and more away.

But he fought. He kept his arm hooked tightly to the branch, he kept those bitter breaths filling into his lungs, and he kept his eyes on the sky.  _ Sixteen hundred men,  _ he weakly told himself, but a part of him seemed to think that it was already a lost cause, that it was already too late. 

Would it really be so bad, to slip away? When there were so many worse ways to go, would it really be such a terrible thing to let his arm loosen and to drift away?

The water had flattened out now, the current had eased, but still, it called to him. Still, Schofield clung on. 

And then, all around him, soft petals, so white that at a first glance they might have been mistaken for snow. His breath halted but his mind was more present than ever, lifting up his arm to see the blossoms that were cradled among his sleeve.

_ Blake.  _

It was as if that word had breathed life into him, reviving his will. 

For Blake, he had to keep going, if nothing else. 

Always for Blake. 


End file.
